Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I'd always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at ease before his own hearth.

One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.

But pain seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

Never do yourself, what you can con professionals into doing for you.

Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.

This is important! But you have to stay absolutely cool. I may be completely off-base, and panicking prematurely." "I don't think so. I think you're panicking post-maturely. In fact, if you were panicking any later it would be practically posthumously. I've been panicking for days.

All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.